You have until the 29th of May to snag your free copy of Plants vs. Zombies.

Plants vs. Zombies may have already spawned a sequel and a weird third-person shooter spinoff, but EA isn't forgetting the game that kicked off the franchise, celebrating the original Plants vs. Zombies 5-year anniversary by giving it away for free. That's right, if you add Plants vs. Zombies: Game of the Year Edition to your Origin library before May 29, you'll unlock it permanently, for free.

To claim the game, simply go to the Official origin website or boot up your Origin client. The game, which usually costs $5, has been made free as part of Origin's "On The House" program, in which select titles are made free for everyone to add to their libraries for a short period of time. Previously, we saw Dead Space kickstart the program.

"There's no catch," EA explained when it launched the On The House program. "Grab full games, expansions and more at absolutely no cost. Just make sure to act fast because On the House specials can appear and disappear at any time."

Some would say that the "catch" is that you have to download and install EA's Origin client, but to be fair, it has been steadily improving since it launched back in 2011. And hey, who's going to complain about a free game?

That's right, if you add Plants vs. Zombies: Game of the Year Edition to your Steam Library before May 29, you'll unlock it permanently, for free.

If this were the case I'd be all over it...But yet again, Origin. I know some people say it's much improved, but I installed it recently and it was still a steaming pile of crap. Although admittedly it now only hogs 14% of my CPU instead of the 30% it used to.

It is the best out of the three games so definitely worth picking up. I find it kind of funny that EA felt the need to state there wasn't a catch though. At least they are aware of the lack of faith people have in them.

Still, they have done something good, so ought to be commended for it.

I like their On the House program a lot. It's what made me keep Origin after getting completely bored of Titanfall. It's like free PS+, give me a chance to play something I may never have tried. Even though the only games that have been free so far are Dead Space and Plants vs Zombies.

I'm also curious if Steam will/has to respond with something like this.

Leximodicon:I like their On the House program a lot. It's what made me keep Origin after getting completely bored of Titanfall. It's like free PS+, give me a chance to play something I may never have tried. Even though the only games that have been free so far are Dead Space and Plants vs Zombies.

I'm also curious if Steam will/has to respond with something like this.

Well with Steam sales being what they are... they likely don't need to. Also remember, Steam is a multi-publisher environment. EA own all the games on Origin so it's easy for them to give it away and set something as free. ForSteam. It sells games for other people. 95% of the games on Steam... are not made by valve. Whether or not5 a game gets marked to down, tagged in a sale and how much they get marked down by is completely up to the publisher, not Steam.

That said Steam has quite a few nifty F2P's like Loadout and DOTA2. Not to mention TF2.

Leximodicon:I like their On the House program a lot. It's what made me keep Origin after getting completely bored of Titanfall. It's like free PS+, give me a chance to play something I may never have tried. Even though the only games that have been free so far are Dead Space and Plants vs Zombies.

I'm also curious if Steam will/has to respond with something like this.

Origin and Steam aren't even in the same league as far as competing against one another. Origin is more on par with Ubisofts DRM system or the now defunct Windows Live: they simply added a storefront to it to increase the utility of it. Really, no one should be using an online system designed first and foremost for DRM purposes and unfortunately Origin and U-play are both built with this mentality. The companies simply don't want to back off them because at this point they got too many things tied up with the systems, unlike Games for Windows Live, which was more so a proprietary system built by a third party (Microsoft).

It's kind of a shame as a lot more people would buy EAs titles if they didn't use the DRM system, even with all the horrible screw ups they have made over the years. Just look at Activision: They scorned an entire Diablo fanbase with the original release of Diablo 3, yet people aren't going up in arms and blacklisting the entire company product line (at least not on the same level as EA).

lol. i actually did get my self dead space since it was for free. i already have origin so this doesnt bother me really since it does work really well and downloads faster then steam. but since i own plants on steam, no use for me now.

Shrug. It was available for free as a Halloween giveaway a couple of years ago. If you weren't willing to put up with the trivial amount of work necessary to redeem a code then, well, installing Origin is probably more than you're willing to put up with.

I'm not going to fault EA for making PvZ available for free. It is, in fact, a great game. A great game I've played through on multiple formats.

Callate:Shrug. It was available for free as a Halloween giveaway a couple of years ago. If you weren't willing to put up with the trivial amount of work necessary to redeem a code then, well, installing Origin is probably more than you're willing to put up with.

Or you, you know, didn't know about that giveaway?

Sassafrass:Sweet, free game.I'm fairly sure that I'm supposed to find something to complain about, but I like free stuff.

At this point, I'm more surprised that EA is actually still trying than by all of the snide, smug, and snarky comments from the gaming community about how "terrible" Origin is--when in reality it's basically just Steam with a differently-colored interface and less third-party content (which, to be honest, is more of a boon than hindrance at this point what with all of the complete shite Steam has been letting on to its store lately)--and how EA are the worst company in the history of the universe and how even if they gave cookies to every little boy and girl on the planet it still wouldn't make them not Mecha Hitler.

...This wasn't some little-known "corner of the Internet" giveaway. They teamed up with the ADA. They gave out millions of copies of the game. Dentists got pre-printed cards, and anyone could print out their own. I personally gave a dozen copies to trick-or-treaters myself.

If one didn't know about it then, what are the chances that someone has been following EA closely enough to know about a giveaway limited to their download service?

Cool, I remember getting a copy years ago, but I've long since forgotten me account details to get it (And had to change email addresses, so it wouldn't work any way), so this is handy. No MJ-zombies, though... le sigh

...This wasn't some little-known "corner of the Internet" giveaway. They teamed up with the ADA. They gave out millions of copies of the game. Dentists got pre-printed cards, and anyone could print out their own. I personally gave a dozen copies to trick-or-treaters myself.

If one didn't know about it then, what are the chances that someone has been following EA closely enough to know about a giveaway limited to their download service?

Well, pretty high apparently, since I'm one of those people.

It's only been the last few years that I actually started following all kinds of gaming news. I didn't get a PS3, Xbox 360, or modern gaming PC until 2010, and before that I was more concerned with things like high school. I wouldn't have been able to tell you what IGN, Kotaku, NeoGAF, Destructoid, or The Escapist even were. Even then, it wasn't until very late 2010-early 2011 that I started actually finding these types of websites.

I imagine there are plenty more people who have only started following this kind of gaming news since 2012, or 2013, or even this year.

Leximodicon:I'm also curious if Steam will/has to respond with something like this.

Well, aside from the TONS of free games it already has, Valve has kinda/sorta done something similar with Left 4 Dead 2 last december... although it was only for 1 day... and Origin's On The House program and PS+ free games last an entire month... so yeah, I'm wondering if Valve would respond with a similar program anytime soon.

SupahGamuh:Valve has kinda/sorta done something similar with Left 4 Dead 2 last december... although it was only for 1 day... and Origin's On The House program and PS+ free games last an entire month... so yeah, I'm wondering if Valve would respond with a similar program anytime soon.

shrekfan246:Well, pretty high apparently, since I'm one of those people.

...Okay, fair enough; enjoy the game. It is, as I said, a good game.

I still find it pretty hard to imagine there are that many people who fall into the category of both having not gotten the game before (one way or another) and either having Origin or having been waiting for this particular reason to install it, but I could be wrong.

About the same number of times as I have to answer, "Why does everyone still have a problem with Origin?"

So, I'd say about 42 times. Yeah. Forty-two sounds like a good number.

Actually, the answer should be more fluid like "As many times as it takes to have the problem properly rectified'. That could be a long time, but the idea is that even after Mention #330, IT'S STILL RELEVENT. Issues don't go away just because people stop talking about them...

Legion:It is the best out of the three games so definitely worth picking up. I find it kind of funny that EA felt the need to state there wasn't a catch though. At least they are aware of the lack of faith people have in them.

It's definitely not surprising though. I mean, they added MTs to the first PVZ on Android, they added MTs to PVZGW, and they "tweaked" PVZ 2 to push MTs harder.